Mouthful of brine, a poem

i.

“I fucked her, but I love you still.”
you are
echoes of soft laughter
under white duvet covers,
the many syllabled-broken promise of an ex-lover,
a gray, oversized shirt i’ve tried on for size
one too many times.
you are
heavy earth,
like your star sign,
no longer the gentle shade of morning’s sigh,
a drop in our
puddle of a hurricane
etching down my windowpane,
five fingers on the small of my back to get me to stay.
you were the one who asked me to leave, sweet.

ii.

“sometimes, I wish I had never broken up with you.”
i am
unmeant words and scratched-out notes,
every sloping “and”
in all our old love poems,
daydreams at seventeen in
a California cloud-traced sky.
i am
light air,
governed by mercury’s mind,
a ray of sun you tried to jar
for your navy-hued night,
drawers filled with all my missing things,
a hothouse flower which in your arms could not thrive,
a lion’s battle cry.
i never said i wanted to stay, dear.

iii.

“everything with her just made me realize how special we were.”
we are
broken records,
unreliable connection,
static
in silence,
an apology,
two people tired of coming together just to leave.

iv.
“I only hope that”
if one day,
“one day”
you come to me,
“we can be what we were again.”
looking for a forever that once made up our days,
palm and five fingers outstaying their welcome
on my eighth vertebrae,
my answer is this:

v.

“no.
i will not come back.
i will never come back.”
you hurt me
three bones beneath the ribcage, and
we are not worth
an ounce more
of my beautiful words, just
a soft epilogue and
a mouthful of brine.